On a mission to find Boulder's first reservoir

The site of Boulder's first reservoir is the flat area in the foreground of this recent photo of Settlers Park.
(Courtesy photo)

Every once in awhile, it's fun to find a new piece of Boulder's past.

I've long been familiar with Settlers Park, where I had focused on the gold prospectors thought to have camped in the shadow of Boulder's own "Red Rocks," in 1858. I recently returned to the park with an interest in Boulder's early water supply.

During my latest trek, I stumbled across the site of the city's first reservoir. It started with some library research, followed by a hike on the city-owned property.

In February 1859, when the early prospectors founded the Boulder City Town Company, they drew all their water from Boulder Creek. Within a few months, those who decided to remain in the frontier town began digging irrigation ditches and forming ditch companies.

Getting water to the residents took time. Farmers Ditch flowed out of Boulder Canyon and crossed Mapleton Hill. The ditch was completed in 1862, but a decade passed before three of Boulder's leading businessmen laid wooden pipes to carry water from the ditch to the town's main streets. Pipes then led into the houses of owners who had requested the service.

For a more dependable water supply, Boulder residents voted overwhelmingly in 1874 to build a publicly funded storage pool, known as the Town of Boulder Reservoir. Completed a year later, it was 160 feet higher in elevation than downtown Boulder and was filled by the newly dug Town of Boulder Ditch.

From the reservoir, water flowed downhill through an 8-inch-long, curved, cast-iron pipe to 12th Street (now Broadway), where it connected to water mains, as well as to fire hydrants on city streets.

"Boulder can already claim to have better water works than any city in the Territory," the Colorado Banner wrote in 1875, a year before Colorado became a state. "The pressure is enough to throw it over any house that ever will be built in Boulder."

At the time, water rates cost homeowners $10 a year for a house with five rooms or fewer. Each additional room added an extra dollar to the bill.

I knew from newspaper articles that, by 1878, Boulder's water mains had been extended throughout most of the downtown area. And, as the city outgrew its first reservoir, it constructed a second one near the mouth of Sunshine Canyon. However, I still was curious as to the site of the first reservoir.

Maps drawn within the next few decades showed the reservoir's location near the towering Red Rocks. But where was there a level space? My crude overlay of a historic map on a modern-day topographical map showed the only possible spot, which was a short walk up what's called the Anemone Trail.

The trailhead to the park (and to the trail) is at the west end of Pearl Street at its junction with Canyon Boulevard. After I crossed Farmers Ditch and bore to the left, I went up a gradual incline. Then the reservoir site (now filled in and behind a small earthen berm) opened up in front of me. It is as flat as a football field, but not as big.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story